Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito He has already joined the craze for taking selfies, but the Duke of York has admitted he finds it off-putting when he is faced with banks of iPads rather than faces when he is attending public engagements.
The Duke said it was “disconcerting” to see people holding smartphones and tablets in front of their faces, echoing a comment made by the Queen to the U.S. ambassador earlier this year.
Speaking to BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat, he said: “One finds that if you’re walking along a crowd of people, you are faced with an iPad, not a face. But it’s a live event. Why do you need to film a live event?”
He said it was difficult to engage with the public as a result and “it’s disconcerting, not rude or anything, just disconcerting, that this is the new reality”.
Last month the U.S. ambassador Matthew Barzun said that when he met the Queen at Buckingham Palace to present his credentials she told him she was not entirely comfortable with the phenomenon.
He told Tatler magazine: “She was essentially saying ‘I miss eye contact’.”
In April the Duke of York became the first member of the Royal family to tweet a selfie, when he took a picture of himself on his mobile phone to promote a scheme helping students to build their own start-up companies.
Speaking to the BBC about his Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award scheme (iDEA), the Duke also talked about his perhaps unlikely friendship with the pop star and music producer will.i.am, who is a board member of the iDEA trust.
He said: “I was fascinated by what he has achieved. He is incredibly focused on what it is that it will take to inspire young people and I’ve seen him do it and it takes about a sentence from him to change somebody’s life.”
And he joked: “No, I have not been to his studio, I have not jammed with him – not yet anyway.”
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